Rochester, NY October 12, 2000—Brokerage and mutual fund customers are more likely than customers in other financial service markets to use the online channel for product purchases/ applications. According to a recent Harris Interactive Financial LandscapeSM survey, at least 63% of brokerage customers and 36% of mutual fund customers surveyed have purchased products online. For many investment products, online purchases are more common than telephone and in-person purchases. These are some of the results of a recent nationwide survey conducted online among over 30,000 adults in various financial service markets, including retail banking, retail brokerage, mutual fund, mortgage, auto loan/ lease, auto insurance, life insurance and property insurance customers.
Top products purchased online by brokerage customers include margin accounts (63%), stocks (40%), stock options (40%) and money market accounts (39%), with a larger proportion of brokerage customers using the online channel for product purchases than in-person or telephone methods. Telephone is the preferred method for purchasing/ obtaining initial public offerings (56%), U.S. treasury or municipal bonds (53%), corporate bonds (51%) and mutual funds (40%). The only products that the largest proportion of brokerage customers are purchasing in-person are CDs (51%) and, to a lesser extent, Roth or traditional IRAs (34%).
In most financial service markets outside of the investment arena, product purchases/ applications are the least common activities conducted online, with one to eight percent of customers applying for products online (banking loan or credit line- 8%, mortgage- 7%, auto insurance- 5%, life insurance- 2%, property insurance- 1%). An exception is credit cards, a product for which about one third of retail banking consumers have applied.
In most of the financial service markets, the online channel is being used to meet informational or product servicing needs. Property and life insurance markets are exceptions, with customers being least likely to have conducted related activities online.
Across most markets, the top online activities conducted are information searches. Auto loan/lease and mutual fund customers are most likely to have conducted information searches about relevant products (auto loan/lease- 79%, mutual funds- 70%). Shopping for rates and comparing pricing or purchase options is another activity conducted by about one-fifth to one-third of online consumers across markets (auto loan/ lease- 36%, auto insurance- 32%, mortgages- 29%, banking loans- 19%). Among banking and mutual fund customers, checking balances, holdings or transactions is a top ranked online activity conducted (mutual fund- 61%, banking- 41%) and, to a lesser extent, transferring money across accounts (mutual funds- 33%, banking- 25%).
The following tables detail online activities conducted across financial service markets, as well as methods of purchasing products at brokerage companies:
Percent who are conducting financial activities online
